B.S. Johnson Quotes

Dogs have not the power of comparing. A dog will take a small piece of meat as readily as a large, when both are before him.

This is my history; like all other histories, a narrative of misery.

I do not see, Sir, that it is reasonable for a man to be angry at another, whom a woman has preferred to him; but angry he is, no doubt; and he is loath to be angry at himself.

Books to judicious compilers, are useful; to particular arts and professions, they are absolutely necessary; to men of real science, they are tools: but more are tools to them.

I fancy mankind may come, in time, to write all aphoristically, except in narrative; grow weary of preparation, and connection, and illustration, and all those arts by which a big book is made.

Life must be filled up, and the man who is not capable of intellectual pleasures must content himself with such as his senses can afford.

Sir, as a man advances in life, he gets what is better than admiration, - judgement, to estimate things at their true value.

Every man's affairs, however little, are important to himself.

He that has too much to do will do something wrong.

A man had rather have a hundred lies told of him than one truth which he does not wish should be told.

To do something is in every man's power.

A man with a good coat upon his back meets with a better reception than he who has a bad one.

We ought not to raise expectations which it is not in our power to satisfy.-It is more pleasing to see smoke brightening into flame, than flame sinking into smoke.

The balls of sight are so formed, that one man's eyes are spectacles to another, to read his heart with.

Every man has a lurking wish to appear considerable in his native place.

There are people whom one should like very well to drop, but would not wish to be dropped by.

There is not, perhaps, to a mind well instructed, a more painful occurrence, than the death of one we have injured without reparation.

The belief of immortality is impressed upon all men, and all men act under an impression of it, however they may talk, and though, perhaps, they may be scarcely sensible of it.

No man is obliged to do as much as he can do. A man is to have part of his life to himself.

With what hope can we endeavor to persuade the ladies that the time spent at the toilet is lost in vanity.

Keeping accounts, sir, is of no use when a man is spending his own money, and has nobody to whom he is to account. You won't eat less beef today because you have written down what it cost yesterday.

If a man is in doubt whether it would be better for him to expose himself to martyrdom or not, he should not do it. He must be convinced that he has a delegation from heaven.

About things on which the public thinks long it commonly attains to think right.

People in distress never think that you feel enough.

Read the book you do honestly feel a wish and curiosity to read.

Though the wisdom or virtue of one can very rarely make many happy, the folly or vice of one man often make many miserable.

Life is surely given us for higher purposes than to gather what our ancestors have wisely thrown away, and to learn what is of no value but because it has been forgotten.

All censure of a man's self is oblique praise. It is in order to show how much he can spare.

No estimate is more in danger of erroneous calculations than those by which a man computes the force of his own genius.

Levellers wish to level down as far as themselves; but they cannot bear levelling up to themselves.

In civilized society we all depend upon each other, and our happiness is very much owing to the good opinion of mankind.

You cannot, by all the lecturing in the world, enable a man to make a shoe.

Trust as little as you can to report, and examine all you can by your own senses.

This world, where much is to be done and little to be known.

By writing, you learn to write.

Most vices may be committed very genteelly: a man may debauch his friend's wife genteelly: he may cheat at cards genteelly

His death eclipsed the gayety of nations, and impoverished the public stock of harmless pleasure.

The roads of science are narrow, so that they who travel them, must wither follow or meet one another.

Other things may be seized by might, or purchased with money, but knowledge is to be gained only by study, and study to be prosecuted only in retirement.

The specualtist, who is not content with superficial views, harasses himself with fruitless curiosity; and still, as he inquires more, perceives only that he knows less.

Wretched un-idea'd girls.

Study requires solitude, and solitude is a state dangerous to those who are too much accustomed to sink into themselves

Nobody has the right to put another under such a difficulty that he must either hurt the person by telling the truth or hurt himself by telling what is not true.

Friendship, peculiar boon of Heaven, The noble mind's delight and pride, To men and angels only given, To all the lower world denied.

The imitator treads a beaten walk, and with all his diligence can only find a few flowers or branches untouched by his predecessor, the refuse of contempt, or the omissions of negligence.

Like an image in a dream the world is troubled by love, hatred, and other poisons. So long as the dream lasts, the image appears to be real; but on awaking it vanishes.

Jesting, often, only proves a want of intellect.

Nothing is more common than to find men, whose works are now totally neglected, mentioned with praises by their contemporaries as the oracles of their age, and the legislators of science.

As the faculty of writing has chiefly been a masculine endowment, the reproach of making the world miserable has always been thrown upon the women.

Get together a hundred or two men, however sensible they may be, and you are very likely to have a mob.